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Three Singapore’s telcos, SingTel, StarHub and M1, have stopped the sales of the Samsung Galaxy Note7, immediately effective on Friday (2 September).
Samsung has earlier announced the global recall of Galaxy Note 7, the latest version of its smartphone, after receiving reports that some gadgets have caught fire while charging.
The company has promised to replace all the device that have been sold, in and outside the country; local customers who have purchased a Note7 handsets will be able to get their phones replaced over the next few weeks.
At a press conference in Seoul on Friday (2 September), head of Samsung's handset business division Mr Koh Dong Jin apologised for causing inconvenience to customers and explained that initial investigations had found fault in battery cells as the source of the problem. There are 35 cases reported globally.
“Only 24 out of every one million handsets were affected by the battery problem; Investigations are still ongoing, but we have decided to stop selling the phone and offer replacements as customer safety is our top priority," he said.
Mr Koh promised that the company would work with their worldwide telco partners to replace the phone ‘as soon as possible.'
"So far, Samsung has not received any reports of battery cell issues with the Galaxy Note7 sets in Singapore," he added.
The Galaxy Note 7 was launched on 19 August 2016 in ten countries, including the United States and South Korea; in Singapore, it went on sale in on 20 August.
The company had had to step up production to fulfil the demand when pre-order results were beyond initial estimates. Industrial experts predicted it could sell up to 15 million units this year.
On the actions by the Telco, Singtel said, “We are working with Samsung on an exchange programme for customers who have purchased the device,” while StarHub said Galaxy Note 7 users seeking more information on their phone could contact Samsung’s customer care hotline at 1800-Samsung. StarHub will inform customers the updates on phone exchanges. And M1 only said, “In line with Samsung’s global Note 7 sales halt, M1 has stopped sales of the handset.”